Amazon has permanently removed from its website books by Joseph Nicolosi, who was often referred to as the “father of conversion therapy,” in a move some say portends censorship of anything Christian regarding sexuality.
For months the global online retail giant has been petitioned by LGBT activists who have urged the company to discontinue selling the works of Nicolosi, a clinical psychologist and Catholic author who died in 2017, NBC reported this week. Nicolosi wrote several works about homosexuality in men and therapeutic approaches for persons with same-sex attraction.
A Change.org petition that was launched five months ago and has garnered over 80,000 signatures that asks Amazon to stop selling his books.
Amazon also disallowed Catholic attorney David A. Robinson from selling his book on the platform in which he shares his personal story of leaving homosexuality. Robinson’s short book, Orientation and Choice: One Man’s Sexual Journey, was sold on Amazon for nearly a year before it was removed last week. When Robinson inquired why this happened, an Amazon representative informed him in an email — which was forwarded to CP — that during a review they found his work was in “violation of our content guidelines” but did not explain why or point out which parts were objectionable.
Author and Eastern Orthodox Christian Rod Dreher said Amazon’s move was the latest example of “woke” capitalism.
“It is only a matter of time before LGBT activists start attacking any book that contradicts their ideology — because now Amazon has shown that it will knuckle under. You don’t have to agree with Nicolosi’s theories to be alarmed at what Amazon has done here,” he wrote on his blog on The American Conservative on Wednesday.
Dreher noted that Amazon still sells books like Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampft, white supremacist David Duke’s book on Communism, and works by Grover Furr, an apologist for Joseph Stalin. For those who assert Nicolosi’s work is not scientific and should therefore not be sold, that is not a valid excuse, he opined, since the website also sells books on healing through crystal therapy.
Full story at The Christian Post.
Welcome to a belated 1984, Bezos style.
Freedom of speech [writing]?? Shame Amazon.
Why a surprise? All totalitarians insist on purging expressions of thoughts that conflict with its driving philosophy. Most, like Hitler and the Nazi Brownshirts, simply outlaw, confiscate, and destroy books. Many examples exist in history. The LGBTQ crowd is no different.
Amazon is no different than much of corporate America, particularly companies like Disney.
Religious liberty y’all. Why would anyone think it’s ok to deny a wedding cake to a gay couple, then demand that a fraudulent book be sold to a gullible audience?
It’s not a fraudulent book just because you disagree with the conclusion and the evidence that supports it. But you’re right about a private business being allowed to do business the way it wants.
It will be sold elsewhere, and Amazon will lose. Misusing someone’s body does not a marriage make and neither is it love, just lust — one of the seven deadly sins.
Besides you misrepresent the bakers. The ones sued were willing to sell anyone anything in their stores; they would just not make special cakes for things they found offensive. No baker should have to make any kind of cake that they find offensive. A Jewish bakery should not have to make a special Christian cake, and no one should be forced to decorate a cake with vulgar terms if they do not want to do so. I am sure any baker would be willing to sell anyone the frosting to decorate their own cakes under those conditions.
YFC,
Dr. Nicolosi’s ideas are not fraudulent. If they were, the LBGT community would have little interest in banning them.
Even though Nicolosi is dead, they still mightily fear him.
YFC,
As evidence that the leaders of the LGBT community fear Nicolosi’s ideas, Nicolosi once complained that someone repeatedly changed his ideas on a Wikipedia webpage — They can’t change the ideas that he presents in a book.
YFC, you’re not a pawn of those wretched people. I think you might actually like his books.
The practice of sodomy is not a religion, stop pretending that it should be protected as such.
Homophobia isn’t a religion either, my friend.
Recognizing sodomy as sin is not homophobia. I am not afraid of homosexuals, no phobia. You are an apologist for sinful behavior. Be afraid of the fires of hell.
Book Burner Bezos
The slippery slope; frog in the cold/boiling water, in action.
With this type of illogical reasoning by Bezos, it would seem to only make sense that soon most, if not all, Catholic authors and many other Christen authors, will also “need” to be banned (burned) from Amazon. The Christen community as a whole would never lobby Amazon to remove pro homosexual literature; we believe in free speech. As the Christen community is so very much larger than the LBGT community, perhaps we will demonstrate to Bezos that fact through our dollars. If a large percentage of us cancelled our Prime accounts, I think Bezos just might notice.
Should we call you cake burner Morrow?
This is the start of a totalitarian state. Not that it has not been progressing rapidly since a few years ago.
Federico,
It’s not correct that this action has anything to do with a totalitarian state, but it does suggest that Amazon has gotten so big and powerful that it’s time for an anti-trust action by the government.
Not a totalitarian state because it isn’t an exercise of government. It’s more properly called the tyranny of woke capitalism.
Available soon in Samizdat.
Dah, comrade Hymie !
I refuse to order anything from Amazon and so should everyone else until they stop their anti-Christian behavior.
I rely heavily on Amazon because I live on an island and can’t just go shop in brick and mortar stores. However, in good conscience, I feel I need to stop supporting them even if it means some sacrifice. I’m sure I can find alternatives.